Why Console Specs Don't Matter

The Extra Credits crew discusses why there's a lot more in determining a console's quality and predicting its sales than the specs of the hardware itself. Many interesting insights shared within.

[Knight_Crawler]

Next gen console sales will be determines on how much features and entertainment each console has to offer at the cheapest price and not by how many GDDRx100 or GPUx100 each consoles has.

@knifefight: He has a point, you cannot compare the 90's and early 2000's economy to todays economy.

People, specially the casual consumer do not care about which product has the most advance and powerful technology but only care that it does what it is suppose to do and its mainstream - The 3DS vs the Vita is one of many examples of this.

Apple and Samsung Galaxy fanatics are a different breed of consumers so my comment does not apply to them as they would rather not buy food or pay child support to buy a new $600 phone each year.

[wishingW3L]

sales are always determined by price. The cheapest always win. But thinking it again that might change since the Wii U will be the cheapest by the time the PS4 and X720 hit the market but it appears that nobody gives a crap about it.

[knifefight]

So why didn't the Genesis (cheaper than SNES), GameCube (cheaper than Xbox and PS2), and Dreamcast (cheaper than Xbox and PS2) dominate their more expensive counterparts?

@caseh
Yes, *I* know that. I was asking the guy above me who said that the cheapest always wins.
The cheapest obviously does not always win. You and I know this, but my question is directed at wishingW3L, because he claims that price always wins.

[caseh]

@Knifefight

SNES was technically superior, and it had SF2. :)

Gamecube was looked at as a 'kids console'

Dreamcast alienated devs like EA before launch.

In a nutshell. :D

[AsimLeonheart]

I believe sales depend upon a continuous stream of quality games and services at a reasonable price. PS3 is still the most expensive console but is now considered to be the best console to own. As far as specs go, only supporters of underpowered consoles like Wii and Wii U say that specs dont matter. Has anybody ever seen a PC, PS3 or XBOX gamer say that specs dont matter? Specs do matter, otherwise we all would still be playing Tetris and Pacman. Obviously, specs are not everything BUT they are important when it comes to creating bigger, better and prettier games.

[Clarence]

The PS3 is the most expensive console on the market yet it has outsold the 360. Now it is currently outselling the Wii and Wii u.

Specs only matter if the developers choose the ultilize them.

[adorie]

$599 has destroyed your theories of "cheapest always win" Especially how it seems that the PS3 will outsell the Wii, before it's discontinued.

[Qrphe]

The Dreamcast and Gamecube were cheaper than the PS2 and look how that turned out.

[ThanatosDMC]

I disagree. Quality games matter.

[jmc8888]

What's so funny about the ignorant comments in reply to what you said is them using PS3 sales totals through now to justify the $599 price tag assertion.

What these morons are doing is pretending that the PS3 sold all those units at $599 price. If they had a hint of common sense or integrity they'd realize that the vast majority of the sales came after the PS3 was significantly discounted.

Then they took a step further by pretending again that the $599 console was beating a $299-$349 console in the Wii U.

You can buy a PS3 for $229 with its much larger catalog of games.

During sales you'll see it under $200.

Why can't people realize that Wii/PS3/360 will continue to outsell Wii U/PS4/720 for the first couple of years....it's called....COMMON SENSE.

Oh and I bought a launch premium PS3. Still works and hasn't had to be serviced at all, unlike my launch 360.

[black911]

Tuck Rule Gone!

[Jek_Porkins]

I think they matter somewhat, where I think Nintendo losses it a bit is by not having a more mature first party game to show off what the Wii U can do. If they had brought out a new game that looked better than Uncharted 2, I think people wouldn't have said much, we do know the Wii U can do pretty good things graphically, but the art style of most Nintendo first party games don't allow it.

I got caught up in the "power" wars years ago with the first Xbox, I remember arguing how much better it was, HD capable, high speed internet modem right out of the box and a HDD included, but at the end of the day it didn't do as well as the much less powerful PS2.

Oddly enough, the most powerful console has never really won a generation....weird when you think about it.

I usually buy all the consoles eventually anyway, but power is usually pretty far down the list when I'm considering a new console.

[Hicken]

Except this gen.

Edit: This gen isn't over, smart guy. And, currently, the most powerful of the three consoles of the seventh generation is poised to be in first place before it's all said and done.

So I repeat: except this gen.

[Jek_Porkins]

How has power won this gen? Wii was the least powerful and sold 100m, Xbox 360 wasn't as powerful as the PS3 but is closing in on 80 million, both Microsoft and Nintendo made significant increases in sales from the previous generation.

[khowat]

The fanboyism, it hurts, gens never end even after consoles are discontinued, because each competitor is in their own pseudo gen. The wii u is the start of the eighth gen and therefore the seventh gen should have ended but no, because the seventh gen is still going on with the ps3 and xbox 360 so we have to wait for their new console to release right? So now the eight gen starts when those two release but wait we have to wait for all the consoles to be discontinued right? So if we look at the 6th gen, the xbox was discontinued in 2006 and the ps2 was discontinued in 2012, if the ps2 wasn't the honking unbelievable god system of the second gen and the race was much closer with the xbox on top, the ps2 would have had 6 more years to catch it and surpass the xbox *note even though sales decrease drastically after a successor is released in this day and age, successors start off really close to their predecessors and therefore 6 more years can make a difference when it comes to measuring console sales*. We don't have a standard by which to fairly measure gens because ending them a different times gives some consoles advantages and disadvantages and before we decide when a gen starts and ends you will always have arguing and therefore you can only compare console sales when they are all still running, the moment the wii drops out and is discontinued you have to stop measuring because microsoft and sony have an inherent advantage. Finally all consoles are running different races on different lengths (MY OPINION HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN JUST AN IDEA ,and the only sure fire way to measure how well a console did is to measure it in its peak year and lowest year at the end and then find the average, and then compare the time difference between these years, although that it is not indicative of how well the console did throughout the gen it is indicative of whether or not the console started off well and fizzled out or was consistent all the way through which I think is more important than total sales,) but in the end we should let companies worry about sales and not fans. How many people buy your console of choice shouldn't be important to you.

Disgruntled sony fanboys are so happy that the wii dramatically declined in sales so they can feel like they won this gen too it's kind of sad to see people so enamoured with a company enough to not realize that when something is over it is over, when the wii is discontinued it physically cannot compete sales wise against the ps3 and therefore it is actually impossible to compare them after the wii is discontinued you can only compare them at the last moment, right before the wii was discontinued. It is like if they were running a race and the wii broke its legs not at the finish line but somewhere else. If the wii got to that point in 2 hours and the ps3 gets there in 4 hours then we can measure for real who would've won the race. The problem is is that is the wii didn't run consistently from start to end and started slowing where it broke its legs and could no longer compete we cannot know if it would have won because we could guess that it would have slowed down substantially be fore it got to the end or that it may have gotten renewed strength of will and would have sped up again, also if the ps3 didn't run the race consistently from start to end then it could have picked up the pace from where the wii broke its legs and could've finished the race substantially faster

If you want to measure sales thats fine but all the ways we have now will always lead to debate so don't be so rude eg. This gen isn't over, SMART GUY (caps locked for emphasis and not quotation). And, currently, the most powerful of the three consoles of the seventh generation is poised to be in first place before it's all said and done.

[puamdefokejpn]

Yes they matter a lot,.. though I still play old games a lot,.. The hell I am buying a new system, if it does not have better sound, graphics, features and new gaming experiences produced on that basis.

[amiga-man]

Of course it matters or we would still be happy gaming on the playstation 1, Sony certainly seem to have set the bar high for next gen console gaming and as long as they don't charge for online gaming they seem to be in the box seat as far a performance and features go.

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

PSSSH... Gameplay Lameplay... Give me more shiny objects to look at to please my cat sized brain.

[amiga-man]

Or use that extra power to improve the gaming experience, I personally can't wait to see what developers like Quantic dreams do with the new power and technology.

[herbs]

Quantic Dream is not an innovative company when it comes to gameplay not in the slightest. There games consist of a bunch of quick time events and pretty pictures. Probably the worst company you could have choosen for an example in this discussion. There next big innovation will most likely be rendering eyelashs pores and sadder looking faces.

[amiga-man]

In your opinion, their games offer something very different from the usual shooter and are a refreshing change for many, but I agree realism is important in their games probably more than any other, but that isnt for the sake of flashier graphics with will be the case with shooters etc, more to try and pull people into and make more real the story you are taking part in.

I can appretiate their games are not for everyone but the power of the new console will enhance what they are trying to achieve more than any shooter which is why I chose them.

[Jakens]

9.2 digital Surround sound and ultra real grass for me.

[MysticStrummer]

Saying specs don't matter is just as stupid as saying only specs matter. There are many factors but specs are important.

[DestinyHeroDoomlord]

Why console specs don't matter (to normal people)

[isarai]

Depends on the way you look at it, depending on the specs it can make it a LOT harder for devs to use/develop for the system which can really hurt the development of the game

[medman]

Of course specifications matter, but they are not the sole factor for a machines success. You have to have good developers, offer quality applications and games, and innovative gameplay and product to move units. Specs are a big part of that, simply because they are the first thing most consumers notice when observing new tech (via that graphical fidelity), and that holds true for many electronic gadgets. People went nuts when the actual PS4 console wasn't shown at the reveal even though what they gave us in technical details was so much more important than what the box that holds the tech will look like. People are attracted to pretty and shiny, even if the pretty and shiny has little to no substance. To suggest that specs don't matter is asinine. If you're buying a car, you're telling me the performance doesn't matter? If you have money and want a sports car, you want horsepower and torque. If you live in inclement weather locales, you may want a 4X4 or front wheel drive instead of a rear wheel drive monster. What's under the hood is always important. It lets you know what the performance ceiling of any apparatus or equipment may be. And when you're spending your money, especially for electronics, you better know how quickly the tech you're buying will become obsolete.

[madjedi]

If specs didn't matter we would still be playing on atari 2600 or 8 bit nes with poorly detailed characters and textures.

Great graphics won't make a horrible game magically become goty, but the nintendo/gameplay is king crowd, need to lay off the bs rhetoric. Plenty of games do both.

In 15- 30 yrs when graphics top out, sure till then not everyone else wants their experience handicapped by the graphics are good enough for me crowd, whose benchmark is nintendo of all companies.

[ShaunCameron]

So, you're saying that Sony and Microsoft fans are a bunch of mindless graphics whores but too much of a peasant for PC gaming? LOL

[madjedi]

No dipshit, typical gameplay asshat response ftw apparently. If sony and ms fans were mere graphics whores, no one would play mag, halo 3, bfbc2 online anymore would they dumbass.

Since all of them are dated in the graphics department.

Wow 5 disagrees truly surprising on a article loaded with nintendo fans.

And how long will pikmin 3's discussion focus on gameplay before it shifts to graphics by nintendo fans.

[Jakens]

It will take more than 30 years for graphics to top out.

[Shnazzyone]

Extra credits: the most intelligent commentary on the industry and gaming future than any other source.

[Abriael]

Pretty silly episode. Specs may not matter too much in terms of sales, but unless you play sales instead of games, specs do matter, and not just a little.

I actually wrote an article not long ago explaining why pretty extensively.
http://www.dualshockers.com...

So, sorry but no. Specs matter. They may not matter to decide who'll win this silly "console war", but that's exactly what does not matter to actual gamers that aren't just fanboys.

[Shnazzyone]

Based on this comment I am unsure if you even actually watched it. Because this video is far deeper than just the title. I mean the first 3 minutes explain quite well why specs don't matter and the rest is the ps4 specs analyzed from a game developers perspective. Explaining deeper why the specs don't matter. He did concede ram matter to developers.

[knifefight]

This is N4G. I'd reckon 30% is a *high* estimate for the number of commenters who actually read the articles/watch the videos they are "responding" to. It seems like it's usually just reading the headlines and writing a reply based on what they THINK is contained in the article. It's sad.

The comment of Thirty3Three below me is an excellent example. He's apparently calling Extra Credits -- industry professionals -- some sort of Xbox fanboys, even though the video doesn't portray that at all, and in the video they even say that even though development for 360 is easier, the PS3 was technically more powerful and both had awesome exclusive games -- and both were outsold by Nintendo. Among other things.

[Abriael]

I watched it all. His concessions sound quite half-assed, and after a few seconds he goes on to preach how specs would matter less than completely unproven gimmicks.

Besides, what matters "to developers" is only partly consequential to what matters to gamers. While it's awesome that a platform is easy to develop on, gamers don't play development ease as much as they don't play sales. They do play games with more enemies with better AI, stronger physics Etcetera.

In the whole video he failed to even touch most of the reasons why higher specs (and it's not just a matter of RAM. RAM is not even the most important aspect of a machine's specs) actually matter for gamers, which is exactly what matters the most.

Ignoring what matters for a machine's customers when trying to make the argument that something doesn't matter is honestly rather ridiculous.

Oh and by the way. "deeper than just the title" is not really much of an excuse. Headlines matter, and people should try to actually reflect what they say in them.

[knifefight]

Yeah I guess not everyone can have the awesome journalistic prowess of Dualshockers.com eh? ;)

[Thirty3Three]

"Why console specs don't matter"

...

... Says the xbox fanboy...

[FrigidDARKNESS]

It doersnt matter who has the better specs. It will be who provides the better content to Gamers.

[DonFreezer]

Depends on the way yoiu look at IT.On this site when we're talking about the Xbox crushing the ps2 of course they don't matter.But when we're talking about the PS3 being 5% better from the Xbox 360 hardware wise they matter as hell huh?

[jacksheen0000]

Spec do matters.

Sony's Ps4 hardware was designed with love, both the Dev and Sony themselves have worked closely together to insure that the hardware specification would be powerful enough so that Dev's wouldn't be limited by what they can do.

So, being that the MS's Xbox720 was designed with out any input from Devs makes me wonder if the 720 would ever be good enough to compete with the Ps4.

[Zool 08]

So for argument sake if both were presented tomorrow would you choose PS4 or Megadrive if specs dont matter